Among other changes this morning, Apple announced a new 85-15 revenue split with developers of apps that have subscriptions. Recode is now reporting that Google has had the same plan in mind for the Play Store, but with an important advantage.

Amongst those who regularly publish content to YouTube, the video site is known for picking favorites and being a black box in terms of the communication it holds with the community when it comes to anyone other than the site’s biggest stars. The company has as of late been trying to change that perception, though, by using the YouTube Creators channel as an outlet to recognize and acknowledge the feedback and concerns of its users. Today it published a new video outlining changes and new features coming soon to the video platform.

While Google just recently introduced the Pinterest-like Google+ Collections feature, it appears that another “Collections,” feature, YouTube Collections, will be getting the axe later this month. YouTube Collections currently lets you organize and group your subscriptions into different folders to more easily find videos you want to watch, but Google says that it’s retiring the feature on May 20th to “focus on other efforts to make your subscriptions more enjoyable.”

“Easy come, easy go” is the usual with many of Google Services (and features therein), so it’s not exactly surprising when we find that Google is planning to ditch a feature in one of its products—no matter how useful it might be to any number of people. It’s possible that Google is soon introducing a new, better, way to peruse through your subscriptions, and they might even be retiring the feature partially to prevent confusion with the other “Collections” feature.

Our thoughts: As someone who isn’t exactly the most hard-core YouTube user, I didn’t even know this feature existed. Actually, now that I do, I kind of wish Google was leaving it so that I could start using it to organize my 50+ subscriptions.

In May, Google opened up the ability for developers to include subscriptions in their apps. It is a feature that has been available on Apple’s App Store for quite sometime.

According to a new posting on the Android Developers’ website, a new feature is landing today for the in-app subscription service Google offers. The team in Mountain View has rolled out the ability for developers to set a free trial period, allowing users to try a subscription before buying. A user will be required to give payment information when signing up for the free trial, but it will not be charged. Like most free trial services, a user will be charged after the trial period is over. As for the changes that developers need to make…. expand full story

Barnes & Noble is optimistic for Nook devices this year, and to help along sales the company is offering discounts on all models with subscriptions to The New York Times or People (via TechCrunch).

Through this limited-time offer, customers will have access to the NOOK edition of The New York Times, plus all their favorite content on the go, through Barnes & Noble’s critically acclaimed devices. In addition to automatically delivering The Times directly to the customers’ NOOK device each day, NOOK subscribers will also receive unlimited access to The Times’ award-winning website, NYTimes.com, including regular news updates, opinions, blogs, video, interactive graphics and more. The NOOK subscription to The New York Times is $19.99 per month for full digital access on NOOK and NYTimes.com.

B&N announced the $99 Nook Simple Touch would be available completely free for users who purchase a one-year subscription to The New York Times. As for the Nook Color (usually $199), NYT subscribers will be able to pick it up for $99. The full-access NYT subscription currently costs $19.99/monthly.

The Nook Tablet, which usually retails for $249, will be available for $199 to users who sign up for a $9.99/montly, one-year People subscription. The promotion is running through March 9, 2012 at more than 700 Barnes & Nobile locations and at www.nook.com/nyt. The entire press release is available after the break: